oh yes. lots of gay sex in dragon age.

Ah, you have played it?

I have just started.

Just finished the origin quest and arrived at Ostagar.

Any recommendations?

I am using maybe two mods now.

Dragon Age Redesigned and Detailed Tooltips.

it's been a while so remind me

which is ostagar?

Some kind of ruined city/fortress.

oh, you're right at the beginning?

Yup!

what are you playing as?

Mage.

me too

mages are the best

Yay!

I don't think I have ever in life played as a non-mage when given the option.

i was a female elf mage. when given the option, i pretty much always play a female elf mage

Hmm.

I contemplated picking a girl.

every now and then i try something else just for a change of pace, but i know what i like

I have played as girls.

Haha.

it's fun. you can get the romance with alistair, which is awesome

i wanted to play through again as a man to do the romance with morrigan, but i haven't had time

Right, right. But there are about 9000 mods to deal with Alistair!

And twice as many for Morrigan.

yeah, i figured that gay sex with alistair would be possible

and popular

b/c alistair is so awesome

Haha.

See, I already know this, even though I haven't yet met either.

you'll meet both of them right away

Noted.

they're the first two party members you meet in the game, though they don't join your party right away

Frankly I find the whole sex thing a bit silly.

at least, morrigan doesn't

Right.

the sex scene itself was no big deal. but the romance was actually very well done. alistair has some great dialog

Hmm.

So did you use any mods?

no, just the DLCs that came with the deluxe edition (or whatever it was)

I hate when you have to choose between spells that "cause great cold damage and have a chance of stunning the target". What does that say? I want numbers! That's where Detailed Tooltips comes in.

Ah yes, I have the Ultimate Edition too.

i looked all that stuff up on the wiki

Ah yes.

I can now just hover over it.

do you care about spoilers? b/c the plot of dragon age was awesome

I wonder whether there are any people who play this type of RPG without caring about numbers and math.

@JSBձոգչ No! Don't tell me!

i care more about roleplaying more than minimaxing

@Cerberus i won't say a thing!

We will speak of that once I'm finished.

@JSBձոգչ I can usually resist the urge to read up on maxing out certain stats and effects in page-long internet articles, because that makes the game boring again. But I do want to pick some nice spells and combinations and avoid spells that I won't use.

i'm in the middle of a Magic draft right now

@Cerberus well, i certainly do some of that

Oh?

A draft of what? Cards?

@JSBձոգչ Reading long articles with mathematical formulae?

Okay, I confess, I have done that. But not all the time, and not about everything.

@Cerberus yeah. i crushed my opp round one, though i still worry that my deck is to greedy

@Cerberus i read enough to figure out which spells i wanted

since you can only respec with the expansion

So a draft of what cards to put in a deck or something? I have never played Magic.

@JSBձոգչ Hmm I'm not doing that.

I want to figure that out for myself.

Learn from tough battles.

yeah. basically you open a pack of cards, pick one you like, and pass the rest to your left. then you look at the cards you got passed from your right, etc.

when you're done you play with all the cards you picked

I can always use a mod to respec if I really have to.

Ah OK, so you have to remember what you passed on, so that you may know what cards the person next to you has chosen?

yes, and you have to anticipate what may be coming your way

ah finally the next round is beginning

Yay!

So there are these talents or something that I have to pick, but none of them seem useful for mages, except the tactics slots.

What did you choose there?

i can't remember

LOL

opp just conceded on turn 2

Wow.

Not bad.

So are you playing Magic online somewhere?

Hmm I suppose I could pick Herbalism or Combat Training.

let me think about what proved to be useful here

herbalism i didn't use much

get as many actions or whatever as you can. that's the bottom row

Yeah.

That was my first pick.

after that, tracking was actually pretty good

Combat training makes it so that your spell is not interrupted as quickly by attacks.

Tracking?

oh, and persuasion.

Ah, coercion?

Oh wait, tracking is a skill? What does it do?

yeah, i'm trying to remember the names

Is it the one that makes you spot enemies or something?

Coercion, the top one, is excellent

OK.

When is it most useful?

survival is the one i had called tracking

Ah...

What's useful about Survival?

coercion is great b/c it gives you extra dialog options.

you can persuade NPCs to help you, get free stuff, and get alternate plot paths

Ah OK. That can be interesting.

survival lets you spot enemies and see their levels

How does that work? When is it useful?

I mean, the game pauses anyway?

it's good to see what level the mobs are at

so you can decide if you want to run away

or what tactics to use

Hmm.

You know, the USA should go for 53 states, because 53 is a prime number. one nation, indivisible

i agree!

Haha.

split CA in three and TX in two

Or how about 50 countries? Then you will have moar prime numbers!

man, that round was over quickly. this is what happens when you have a pack rat and your opponent concedes on turn 2

Great.

At what level of difficulty did you play DA:O?

I'm playing on hard now, and I found some battle rather hard.

i think i just played normal

I had to reload 5 times to win the toughest spider battle in the cave in the (introductory) mages' tower.

but it was several years ago that i played the game

Ah OK.

i did a lot of reloading

How about the demon in the Fade?

I had to reload a few times there.

there are some very hard fights later in the game.

i remember the difficulty curve being U-shaped, with many hard fights at the beginning, then a long stretch in the middle that was easy, and hard fights again at the end

The only way to survive was by freezing my ally, the bear, so that he could suck up the shots from the spirits/wisps.

Ah OK.

that's an interesting strategy

Good to know.

i didn't find the demon in the fade especially difficult

It was the only thing I could think of to survive, with the spells I had picked.

Hmm.

If I just attacked it, it would kill my bear very quickly.

And be barely damaged in the meantime.

No way I could heal my bear fast enough.

i used a lot of area of effect spells, which were generally effectve

i'm pretty sure my bear died. (he got better.)

Yeah.

Oh, my bear died too.

Eventually.

ok, round 3 starting shortly!

I like the AoE spell that stuns everyone.

Good luck!

i feel good to win this one and take the whole tourney

Based on the first two rounds...

I would say victory is as good as yours!

What game are you guys talking about? I was away for 2 hours clearing the snow.

And its still snowing.

But its worth it.

I'm playing Dragon Age.

Plus the 1 week no school by Sandy, they delayed school opening by 2 hours.

JSB is playing Magic.

Hey @sim.

Magic?

Congrats on the no school!

The Gathering?

Yeah.

@Cerb Delayed... But still accomplishing something.

Used to play Yugioh...

My mom did not like it, so I played it secretly, keeping my cards for 2 years inside my locker during middle school.

Haha.

Than when we moved somewhere else for better education, it was impossible for me to hide the cards.

Why did she dislike it?

She's religious that way; dislike of violence, dragons, etc.

Ah.

So I left my cards in my old locker back in my old middle school; including my rare cards.

Then she must dislike any PC game...

Exactly.

I have to play them secretly too.

Haha.

Few parents like the violence in games and films.

One rare card I bought form my friend, Magician of Dark Chaos, cost 20 bucks.

But I left them all. No choice. Besides, no one played them anymore.

They probably moved to a Better Place now.

On the top of my head, I lost about 80~100 dollars.

They are now on a janitor's altar.

... and it's over. i completely obliterated my opponent

I don't know whether they cleared out the lockers. They made us clear out the locker ourselves.

Congratulations!

Perhaps they got placed inside the hands of a rabid fan.

Hopefully.

No doubt.

@SonicTheHedgehog my parents didn't want me to play magic when i was young. but i got back into it when i was old

when i was in college, i mean

Same reason?

It would be regrettable if they got trashed.

now i'm old enough to spend my own money on magic, and no one can stop me :D

But hey, even though I threw away 100 bucks, I ain't even mad.

My parents allowed me to play anything, except that we weren't allowed a console in the house, and only maybe 1 hour of tv until we were 16 or so.

Guess why.

@Cerberus basically

Dang these "retry this in blah seconds"

OK.

@Cerberus Is "Timor solam entis in aeternum" valid? What does it mean?

Umm it is most probably incorrect, and at least incomplete.

It doesn't make sense.

What does each word mean?

Sorry for prodding.

"fear only of being in eternity"

Don't be.

This is place where you want to prod.

Fear - only - being (Neo-Latin) - in - eternal.

OK.

Who wants to live forever - Queen

Please.

Yeah it makes no sense. Someone may have looked up some words in a dictionary.

please what?

@SonicTheHedgehog If there is something you want to tell us, then just do so.

are you irked b/c of your parents not letting you do things?

Just counted my allowance that I never bothered to count few days ago.

Not exactly english grammar... Can 04:31 PM PST be represented as simply 1631 PST?

I got 100 bucks burning my computer's backside and I ain't got any place to spend it.

:)

@its_me yes... so long as it's in a context where your audience will understand it

This place is soo not like Korea.

In Korea, you can walk several yards to reach nearest convenience store.

@JSBձոգչ So, it's not widely used? kinda unconventional?

I've seen it in movies and some place else

@its_me yes, mostly

@SonicTheHedgehog But only in cities, I presume?

oh, okay

This place is so big that it takes several minutes by car to reach the nearest convenience store.

at least people tend to use a colon. 16:31 PST is more standard

@cebrerus Yeah, of course.

okay

without the colon i associate it with "military time"

Yeah...and even without the colon...

@SonicTheHedgehog this is one of the annoying things about america, for sure

@Cebrerus but the definitions of a "city" is very ambiguous here.

@Js True that.

No doubt.

@JSBձոգչ didn't know it's also called by that name. Good one.

The nearest supermarket to my parents' house is about 5 km.

@Cerberus but do they have some sort of local market that's closer

In cities or villages, it should be about 1–2 km max.

@JSBձոգչ Nope, I don't think so.

that's a little unusual

Hmm not exactly. They live sort of in the country.

even in the tiny village where my wife's grandmother lives, there's a local store selling bread and other staples

In a village, you will nearly always have a supermarket.

Talk about unusual; back in my old home in Ridgefield it takes several miles to get to somewhere where they sell something.

But in some sort of residential street that isn't close to a village "centre"?

Hey @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇

yo

Actually, I think the other supermarket is a bit closer. It's 10 minutes by bike.

How far would that be?

Yo.

How close is nearest convenience store from you home @Mr.ShinyandNew安宇?

okay guys, i think i'm going to bed now

the kids wake up way too early in the morning

g'night

Night.

@SonicTheHedgehog convenience store? from my home? there's one at the end of the street

@Cerberus Fast bike or casual bike?

two blocks

@Mr Your kidding. What state you live in??

There are two grocery stores within 1.3km

For me it takes at least 3.

I'm not in any state, I'm in Canada

But I live in one of the densest cities here

Night!

Good ol' Canada.

@cerb: michaelgeist.ca/content/view/6692/125

@Mahnax Casual.

Okay, the super tiny supermarket is actually only 2.5 km from my parents.

@Cerberus So it would probably be 1-2 km.

So I lied. I apologise to the room.

Oh, OK.

@Mahnax That's super slow!

I thought I'd never see the day where Cerberus lied to us.

@Cerberus Yeah.

weeps pitifully

I used to live in a small town, where I had to walk at least 10 minutes to reach a convenience store

maybe as much as 12 minutes

So @Cerb, I found out that the person was trying to say "The fear of being alone forever" in Latin. What would you recommend instead of that garble?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's reality for me right now.

@Mahnax For some reason I thought you lived in Edmonton

@Mah How in the world did "The fear of being alone forever" become "The fear of being in eternity"???

or was it Calgary

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Near Edmonton.

But he's not telling you where exactly.

Oh, it wouldn't be that hard to figure out.

it's okay, it isn't important

It's not like I'm going to go over there. It's kinda far from Toronto, for one thing

I actually plan on going to the U of T for my undergrad degree.

Hey, remember that time where Red Dwight was able to guess where some people lived based on hwo they write?

I went to U of T. I liked it there.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 That's mostly Ok. I knew that was coming.

He got it right three times in a row.

@Mahnax Hmm let me think.

@Cerberus Yes but the implication is that those new things that we can do now were illegal before.

And for some reason, I always confuse Cerberus with Reg.

Both of their profile pic is a bit similar.

@SonicTheHedgehog ha! They are nothing alike. Except in chattiness.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Hmm yeah OK. But it could have been so much worse.

True.

Read about Reg's talent starting here:

The DRM stuff is silly because it can't really be enforced anyway.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But we all are chatty. Everyone who comes here often is chatty. Chatting like there is no tomorrow.

@Mahnax Timor solitatis aeternae = fear of eternal loneliness. That's probably close to how a Roman would say it.

@Cerberus OK, thanks.

What is it for?

Ah, now I see how those two statements got mixed up.

Mahnax, you planning on being immortal?

@SonicTheHedgehog Cerb and Reg are #1 and #2 most chatty users on SE

chat.stackexchange.com/users

@Cerberus Nothing, really.

OK.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Have been for ages!

We should make some kind of award.

Hey Cerb, whats one thing you always wanted?

@Cerberus Well, it's silly because it doesn't add any protection and they don't plan to enforce it for non-commercial infringement and anyway non-commercial-infringement has max damages of $5k

Yeah.

@SonicTheHedgehog Immortality will do.

Or the power to wish for whatever I wanted.

@Cerberus That's a wish inside a wish.

So?

@Cerberus Not just immortality though. It needs to be more clearly defined else you'll get screwed, forever.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Ditto. Absolutely.

like "youthful immortality with unlimited learning capacity and freedom from sickness and aging and..." etc

Haha, I still have the extension that removes every picture Sonic posts on.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Yeah. I was trying to be...modest.

@Mah Oh come on, that was ages ago.

@SonicTheHedgehog I forgot to take it off.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 You can compose any sort of and and and wish, and you will still miss something that the genie can screw you with.

Yeah, I promise I won't try to troll you again.

Now disable it.

@SonicTheHedgehog What is this guy about?

I have seen him before.

@SonicTheHedgehog I do what I want.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Cool.

That's the spirit.

@Cerb His face is obligatory when someone makes inception-ish comment.

@Cerberus Probably you can come up with SOMETHING that's fairly airtight. Genies can't be infallible, right? otherwise how'd they end up in the lamp?

@Mahnax deflates

@Cerberus Haha.

Inception of what?

Inception comment.

Like your comment few minutes ago.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Or maybe it's just a mess.

Hehe.

@SonicTheHedgehog haha, I just got up to go to the washroom and I thought of that exact joke while peeing

And this one (last one):

I'm sure you all wanted to know that

Haha2.

in the first one, the lawyer says "I wish your initial rule [ was different than you stated it]". Why not just way "I wish you hadn't stopped me from wishing for more wishes."

Yeah.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Too simple; I think the point of that comic was to confuse us by attorney garble.

And if it was, it did a pretty good job on me.

@SonicTheHedgehog well, yes. But if you can wish away what the genie says, you don't need to be so complicated about it.

I read a novel once, a long time ago, called "The Toothpaste Genie", where a girl finds a genie in a tube of toothpaste

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 But, if you are complicated about it, Genie might be too confused to stop himself from granting that wish.

The girl wishes for more wishes, but the Genie explains that it doesn't work that way, so no matter how much you want it, you can't make the Genie's finite power infinite.

Go on. Dis gon b gud

Well, then she wishes for tons of things, like perfect hair, or perfect handwriting, or whatever... things a self-conscious child might wish for. In the end she wishes away almost all her changes and the genie gets sad, because since he hasn't accomplished anything, when he returns to wherever he came from, he'll be demoted from toothpaste to soap-flakes and that will make him sneeze.

So her final wish is that her family win the lottery at some point.

the end.

...I thought it was going to be longer with sappy ending and with good morals.

I am extremely disappointed.

Well, it was the typical "you've it good already" and "be careful what you wish for" story.

and "friendly genies are too incompetent to grant sensible wishes" and "evil genies will screw you"

well, there was no evil genie.

How about we make the story better?

But why would the genie grant her the "perfect hair" wish with hair that can never be moved out of place?

Obviously, for humorous effect. But the genie is really quite a dunce.

Did you guys really wear a dunce cap when you were in school?

and the girl is not good at refining wishes. She had like a whole month of daily wishes and never consulted with anyone or told anyone or anything. She could have wished for perfect language skills, or excellent physical condition, or ... lots of things. Instead, at the very end, she wishes for money. BORING!

@SonicTheHedgehog "you guys"? like, people here? No, I'd be shocked.

I was wondering if this is the right way to represent phone numbers — +1-713-574-5287 for mobile and +1 (713) 574-5287 for landlines? Does this apply to any country whose numbers are also limited to 10 digits?

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Back than, I mean.

@SonicTheHedgehog Well, it is a real thing. But centuries old.

Huh.

@its_me the () for the area code is used for any phone numbers in north america. Either format would be recognized though many people might find the +1 off-putting. In North America lots of people probably have no idea that their country code is 1. They just assume that's the long-distance dialing code.

In other countries the groupings of the numbers might be different even if there are 10 digits.

@Mr.ShinyandNew安宇 Okay, so +1-713-574-5287 for mobile and (713) 574-5287 for landlines in N. America?

@its_me Well, for N.Am numbers meant to be read by N.Am people, you'll just see 212-222-1111 or (212) 222-1111 for either kind of line.

I mean, are the spaces and -'s in the right place?

@its_me yes. But the mobile/landline distinction is not made, I don't think.

Ah, okay. No +1, got it

okay

thanks